Watch: ''À la recherche du réel perdu: In search of the lost real"

02 December 2014

Professor Alain Badiou, introduced by Professor Campbell Jones of Sociology as "the greatest living philosopher", presented this lecture to a packed audience at the University of Auckland on Tuesday 25 November 2014.

In the lecture Professor Badiou argues that in the world today, the 'real' is generally confused with the economy. Knowledge of the 'real' has been reduced progressively to economics, to the point that economics now literally dictate the obligations of politics.

He argues that political scandals show us a small part of the 'real' which is generally obscured and invisible. But these scandals are presented as an exception to the law of the world, rather than representative of the general or structural situation, and function finally as propaganda.

Watch Professor Badiou’s full lecture below, in which he seeks to escape the discourse of economics and access 'the lost real'.

Presented by the School of Social Sciences, the Auckland Critical Theory Collective and the Europe Institute.


Find out more about studying Sociology